I’ve been working on my documentary for four months now, and I’ll tell you – I’ve learned a lot. I sound like a broken record when I say that this is not a one person job. I’ll also say that I’ve had some good help along the way, I’m not always alone. Since the beginning I’ve had a basic plan for writing, filming, marketing, etc. Part of the marketing is online/social marketing, which I feel I have a good grasp of. However, new to me is email campaigns, of which I’ve officially launched my first.

Speaking of first, first things second; if you would like to sign up for my email campaign – you’re crazy. But I like crazy people. Click your mouse on the word “here”, here.

Who are email campaigns for? They’re for you, silly. And to answer your second question, why you should start one? You should start one to be less annoying, to give people information that they’re actually interested in, and to help you stay connected with your friends, family and fans. Email campaigns are nice because they are auto-managed by a service like Mail Chimp. You don’t have to decide who is going to be on the list, people decide if they’re going to be on your list. And it’s simple, you just tell people that you have a list, that they should click “here” and then they sign up. When you bore them, they cancel their subscription.

Your scenario. You’re going to travel around the world for 8 months and you’ve decided you’re going to take photos and do a little writing. Before email services like Mail Chimp you were deciding who was going to be on your list and managing that list yourself, taking people off of it when they didn’t want to be bothered with your updates about the best cupcake you ate in Melbourne (but seriously it was good and it’s worth reading about).

But wait, there’s more. Mail Chimp has a ton of templates for you to use so your emails can be pretty, and you can paste your photos from Australia right into the email. You can also get stats on how many people opened your email and how many links they clicked on within it. Super sweet, I know.

How have I started to use the service? Good question Alan. Two days ago I sent my first email out to the 62 people who signed up (thanks again to those of you who signed up). I also played with some settings making the first email auto-send one day after anyone new signs up for the list. This email list is important to me because it allows me to communicate to the people who want to be a part of the film-making process with me. There is so much work to be done and so much content to spread. As a single person, my message can only travel so far before dies out. I can only reach my friends on Facebook and Twitter, but with a group of active friends and fans I can send my message out to my list and ask for them for help.

Don’t understand? Here is my scenario. Let’s say I have a trailer for my film, and I want thousands of people to see it. I have about 1,000 friends on Facebook and 1,500 “Followers” on Twitter – of whom maybe only 200 are online at any given time I Tweet. I post my trailer on Facebook, which then filters my trailer so maybe only 100 people on Facebook see it. But then I send an email to my list asking people to, “Like”, “Share” and “Repost” my trailer. Facebook takes this data and says “Oh, people like this, I’m going to send it to more walls” (that’s how Facebook talks), and the video hits more eyeballs. On top of that, I ask politely for the people on my list to go a step further and ask two or three more friends to do the same for them, as a favor, for a friend. If my trailer is any good, then people will like it. When people like something online it naturally spreads – but with a little push from 62 people, it has a much higher chance of success.

This is why I am excited about my email campaign. If you made it this far, and you want to sign up to be on my list (silly you), and you don’t feel like scrolling back up to where you could have clicked here earlier – then for you I will put the link here so you can click it there.

Also, not so long ago I produced this video with the king of everything online, Loic Le Meur, specifically about this topic. Below is said video.

It appears now that my sisters blog and mine has become a conversation amongst each other. I give her advice she gives me advice. But alas, it’s being shared in the right spot – a place where everyone can see it, and anyone can respond. She asks, “What would be your top three pieces of advice on social netoworking”. After realizing she meant networking and not netoworking which is ‘the act of doing pretty cool stuff for work’, I gave her this answer.

Be tuned in as often as possible (reading, responding, updating). That means check on twitter and facebook from your phone when you’re on the toilet.

P.S. Cait, it’s spelled Neatoworking, not netoworking. Like neato burrito – for neto read “Suffix used in Portuguese speaking countries to distinguish a grandson from his grandfather when they have the same given name.” Which is one on one networking which doesn’t really seem social to me. I digress.

I know not everyone is like me, but my mind runs really fast and I want to share most of my experiences and thoughts. I’ve learned over the years that not everyone wants to hear what i’m thinking, so i’ve given myself a filter. It’s the same on the internet. For example. It’s raining hard right now and I want to tell the world. But what’s the content there? Rain? I better supply an epic video of a popsicle stick boat racing down my street or i’ve wasted a lot of peoples precious time – and there is already way to many of us out there posting noise. Note: I’d watch a popsicle stick boat racing down a fast current in a gutter.

I’ve been online “networking” it up for a few years now and have found places to put my various thoughts. When I see a photo or video that I like I post it on my Tumblr account which I generally let auto tweet. So a great video or photo goes to two places. If someone I don’t know does something cool and they have a twitter account I tweet them. Why? Because encouragement is cool man.

Facebook is different for me. I try to imagine i’m in a giant room full of people that I know and know me back. When most of my friends and I signed up for Facebook it was to be connected with one another, not to preach at each other. With that said I think Facebook is an incredible way to connect with people, I just prefer to do my random thoughts elsewhere.

Finally I caved in and made myself another Tumblr account – one that I don’t plan on sharing with you. It’s where I put all of my random thoughts that I think are funny, interesting, or that I want to remember. It’s not intended to be seen by the outside world, though it is available. It’s made for me to release the noise so it’s not so loud in my head.

Finally what I said to Cait was, “It’s about being tuned in to your own thoughts then figuring out where and to whom you will share them.”

If you came here hoping you would learn more about Social Networking I would like to point you to a video series I made with Social Networking extraordinaire Loic Le Meur. Build Your Own Brand.

Another final note: My film has an e-mail list. You should sign up by clicking here or here.

P.S. It’s raining so hard.

Levi’s is looking for a hip woman passionate about fashion who has an existing online presences through twitter and facebook. The campaign is called “The Search for the Levi’s Girl”. If you or a friend fit that profile and want to live and work in SF this summer you should check out this video and apply. All you have to do is submit a 1 – 2 min long video about why you would be a “good fit” (Hahahahahahahahahaha! Hilarious!). More information can be found at the Levi’s Facebook page. The application deadline is June 20th. After all the submissions are in all the fans on Facebook will be asked to vote on their favorite. I’m sure Levi’s will have some say in narrowing this down, but it’s always nice to have voting done by the people. Great publicity too!

Sounds like it could be a pretty cool summer job. Who’s in?

This is a simple use of social media that I think should be used as an example of how to effectively get people to send out your message. First off, it’s simple. You show up to the page – you probably got there from a friend. You log in to twitter using their simple OATH (I only know that term because they use it at the office all the time). The page then asks you if you’d like to “Deploy a boom”, which basically means it’s going to tweet out their message that reads, “Help raise awareness to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill by reading the info and deploying a social #boom at http://theoilspill.org“. Then a an orange thing appears on the web page with your name in it leaving you with the “Look mom, I’m on TV!” effect.

This is a good cause, it’s easy to do, and you can learn about what’s going on with the oil spill. It looks as though I was the 204th person to “deploy” a boom – we’ll see where it goes from here.

I’ve come across another great advertisement that caught my attention through video sharing on Twitter. This ad was created for the TOMTOM phone by an ad agency called Pool Worldwide based out of Amsterdam. Pool Worldwide did a great job creating a compelling video that would capture our attention online for a whole two and a half minutes! What’s really great about this ad is that you don’t know that it’s for TOMTOM until the very end – and then you think, “I want one”.

You can watch the video yourself but the basic premise is Darth Vader is in an audio studio recording his voice for the TOMTOM GPS. He just can’t seem to get his lines right. Silly Darth Vader, I’ll never understand how you became Supreme Commander, Dark Lord of the Sith. After a bit more digging I found their campaign page over at TOMTOM DOT COM (which is even cooler to say then read). The only problem is I had to use my own will (or maybe they used the force on me? You see that’s the crazy thing about the force, you don’t know when it’s being used on you) to go check the site to see what else they had going on – and of course, they have a game. Everyone has a game. And of course in the game you can Tweet and Facebook your scores. Hooray!

So I love the video, and I’m glad they’re jumping on the social media train, but the person who deserves the big paycheck is the person who came up with the idea to be able to buy new voices for your TOMTOM. Are you kidding me? That is just to genius. For $12.99 I can download some voice that is hilarious and entertain my friends while I drive around lost because I never memorized the names of the streets in my neighborhood. I love it!

In conclusion. TOMTOM needs to give that employee a raise. Pool Worldwide: brilliant, well-executed ad campaign, I hope it’s paying off.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been inspired by Jamie Oliver and his ambitious campaign that I first discovered through his TED Talk. Every year TED awards one person the TED prize of $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World” – which is basically the tools and connections that a conference like TED can provide. Jamie Oliver’s wish as quoted on the conference page reads “I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.” Jamie’s talk inspires for a few reasons. First you are blindsided by some serious statistics about obesity. Then you realize just how passionate he is about trying to fix the problem. The talk is quite moving and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you take a look.

The campaign begins. In January, Jamie joined Twitter and started getting the word out. Now he’s trying to get one million people to sign an online petition that he plans on taking to the White House to present to the President. The word is out, the Tweets are being retweeted, the Facebook page points to the petition and his site which has everything you’d need to know about Jamie’s Food Revolution.

I also enjoyed this Mashable interview by Brenna Ehrlich where Jamie explains exactly what the food revolution is. Interviews like this just go to show how much of an effort the guy really is putting into his campaign.

I don’t have kids but some day I hope to, and when I do I’d like them to be served good food by the school system. I could write a whole post about the importance of eating healthy food, and how feeding kids properly not only benefits them, but all of us. Instead I’d like to support the movement by signing the petition and posting this for all of you to read in hopes that you’ll do the same.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen or thought about the idea of clickable videos. I remember two or three years ago, before I worked for Seesmic, seeing a company working on this. After connecting with my good friend Liz Gannes, an editor for NewTeeVee.com, I was pointed to videoclix.tv who has built this very technology.

Though the idea is simple, it seems the technology is a bit complicated. A consumer comes to a video and is able to click on various objects which then causes a link or some sort of display change within the video. This is exactly what Diesel has done. The photo shown below is a screen capture of what happens when you roll your mouse over their ad. The video stops and arrows start to point at everything that is available to be purchased through Diesel. As you move the cursor around, you discover different items that you can buy (as seen below). You can then click on any item and a little box will appear within the player asking if you’d like to buy, or get more info.

I wouldn’t argue that this is the best way to shop, but I would say that it’s an interesting way to discover clothes that maybe you wouldn’t have seen by just browsing their web page. It’s also interesting to see how the clothes fit moving people rather than just sitting on models. Again, I’m not sure that will convince you to buy something, but it might. The reason this is so spectacular though is the fact that you can shop while you’re watching a commercial. It seems that this is any brands dream. Imagine if you were at home watching television and you could pause a commercial, or even a show, click on a item, and buy it right there. That would eliminate several steps including pulling out your computer, searching for the item all over the web, then buying it.

The technology for this on television may be pretty far away, but I see no reason for a show not to start making some serious money off labeling everything in their show, contacting the brands and taking a cut of all items sold through the show. It would definitely change the viewing experience, but it would be totally controlled by the consumer, stopping the show when they wanted to know more about a product. Online you may even be able to take away the repetitive commercials this way. I think this is the wave of the television and consumerism future and whoever gets on it first wins.

To watch Diesel’s video, click here.

I was recently introduced to a company called 37 Signals by my boss Loic. I had heard of a couple of their products and although I do not use any, I know several people who use Basecamp and Ruby on Rails. In fact, because I’m not a coder working in a coder’s world, I find myself making jokes about how “I did that in Ruby on Rails” or “really, you don’t think that could be done? Well have you tried it in Ruby on Rails?”. I mainly make these jokes because Ruby on Rails is a good name that I can remember and RSS jokes are just getting outdated now. But I digress.

What I was looking for when I headed over to 37 Signals’ homepage was the format of their web pages. I’m working on a new project at work that will bring a new perspective to our company – the idea is to create an atmosphere that brings people back to our site for other reasons than to see what our products are about. Basically we don’t want our webpage to be totally static, so we’re looking to create more content – like we used to do with “Seesmic du Jour“. 37 Signals does this quite well – even stepping outside of their digital presence into the print world.

They have a book! It’s called “REWORK“. I’d like to make a few points here:

37 Signals is a company that makes easy-to-use web apps for businesses. They say on their site “Every day the world’s most respected brands, small businesses, non-profits, and entrepreneurs depend on our products to make their businesses run smoothly. Safe, secure, and reliable. Since 2004.”
So you could go to their site to download software, or to see what people who use their products think about it, but you can also keep up with their “daily thoughts and opinions” on their Signal vs Noise blog. Or, you could get their book “REWORK” which they have made a very clever video advertisement for and posted on YouTube.

So let’s look at this business construct that they’ve designed – it’s awesome. First they’ve made a several products that people love. Second, they’ve designed a web page that is welcoming and informative. When you show up to it you can find figure out what they do – without information overload. They’ve made a blog that they regularly update and therefore bring people back on a constant basis. They’ve written a book. If you read the book, it may lead you to the company – as it did for me. If you go to the blog, it may lead you to the YouTube video, which will lead you to the book. The web page advertises the book. Everything links back to them, their brand, their company. I’m not sure if they’d prefer you use their products, read their book, or follow their blog – but I’m sure they’d be happy if you did any of those. The point is – their reach is massive, now spreading beyond their own web page and into pages that you physically flip in your hand – a book that our boss wants his employees to read.

This is a salute to 37 Signals and their awesome brand presence.

A while back, IKEA made this wicked awesome ad campaign that I never wrote about. I recently came across it again when doing some social network advertising research. The video says it well, but the basic gist of the campaign revolves around photo posting on Facebook. What they did was post photos of IKEA products in a room on Facebook. People then tagged their name on any product, like a lamp. The first person to tag their name on that product won it. The genius part about this is that when you get tagged, you end up on all of your friends walls as a Status Update. In essence, IKEA was advertising through tons of people without having to spend money on Facebook. Genius.

GEICO Careers looks like a pretty cool company to work for. I don’t know that I would necessarily want to work as an employee answering phones anywhere, but whoever has the job of social media marketing for GEICO has a pretty cool job. What makes this particular video really smart is that it highlights the good qualities about it’s employees. They’re cool enough to learn choreography, a song, and take some time to make a video. Yes, the video is made with actual GEICO employees, which just goes to show that they’re normal people, not drones behind phones (I just made that up, I think it’s pretty good).

Not only does this video make GEICO look like a “good” (in the “not evil” sense) company filled with “good” people, it makes it look like a fun place to work. I’m telling you, if your company has the money to hire someone to make videos about how awesome you are, you should. If done right, the video will grab viewer’s attention and remind them about how cool you are. Could you imagine if Coke suddenly started posting videos about the crazy hi-jinks that happen at Coke Corporate? I’m telling you – people would watch it, love it, and think that Coke was the best company on earth. Well played GEICO.